Android takes the US smartphone market share lead for January

GOOGLE'S DESSERT THEMED mobile operating system Android has knocked Apple's iOS off the top spot in smartphone market share in the US, a report by Kantar Worldpanel Comtech has revealed.

Kantar Worldpanel Comtech, which tracks smartphone sales across several global markets on a monthly basis, released its report on Monday. It found that Android accounted for 49.4 percent of smartphone sales for the three months ending January 2013 for growth of 6.4 percent year on year.

This was 3.5 percent greater than Apple's iOS, which polled in second place during the period, accounting for 45.9 percent of smartphone sales in the US, down 4.7 percent compared to the prior year.

Windows Phone continued to lag behind the two leaders, but did rise slightly, registering a 3.2 percent share of smartphone sales.

Kantar Worldpanel Comtech attributed the boost in Android sales over the period to its upsurge in the US Sprint network's smartphone sales.

"In the three month period ending October 2012, sales on Sprint were divided almost 50/50 between Android and iOS," Kantar Worldpanel Comtech analyst Mary-Ann Parlato said. "However, in the latest period, Android's share of Sprint sales increased by 22.6 percent points from 49.3 percent to 71.9 percent."

As for Blighty, Kantar Worldpanel Comtech's report revealed that Windows Phone is slowly gaining popularity with consumers, growing its user base in Great Britain by almost 700,000 in the past year, an increase of 240 percent.

Although iOS and Android continue to take the greatest share of smartphone sales in Great Britain, accounting for 30.6 percent and 56.2 percent of purchases in the latest data, respectively, Kantar Worldpanel Comtech's report demonstrated that Windows Phone devices are now selling in significant quantities.

"In the three months to January 2013 Windows [Phone's] share of the smartphone market has grown to over [six] percent in Great Britain, up from 2.4 percent the previous year," the report said.

However, that still leaves Microsoft in the same position in smartphones that Apple has occupied for many years in the PC market, with less than 10 percent market share.

It'll be interesting to see how Blackberry performs in Kantar Worldpanel Comtech's next quarterly report, following the release of the first Blackberry 10 handset, the Z10, just last month. We'll be keen to find out if the Canadian smartphone maker manages to turn around its fortunes. µ